"In fiscal year 2000, (Bill) Clinton's last as president, the federal government spent $1.77 trillion. Multiply that number by two, and you're almost to federal spending in FY 2010: $3.72 trillion in (President) Obama's first wholly owned budget. If we had limited government's growth — not actually cut government, mind you, but limited its growth — at the rates of inflation and population expansion, the 2010 federal budget would have been a much more affordable $2.50 trillion. Instead of 'fiscal cliff' on Jan. 1, 2013, we'd be facing a federal budget surplus. Faced with the overwhelming evidence that the debt and deficit problem is a spending problem, negotiators and commentators are talking about everything except cutting the size of government."

— Matt Welch of Reason magazine, explaining why no one on either political side is talking about cutting the size of government, Nov. 30

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